Dear Maura, please stop growing

Okay, I don’t mean forever – though now that we’re the same height, I’m thinking she’s tall enough, and can stop growing upwards.

But she probably will be taller than me. It’s a fact I’ve embraced as the short person I’ve always been.

However, I need her to stop growing for a period of time. One long enough for me to delve into the pit of despair that is the (clean) laundry pile and sort out what doesn’t fit her anymore. Which is a lot. Because she keeps growing and keeps wanting to wear things that don’t quite fit her anymore.

“That’s too small honey.” I say.

“No!” she insists.

sigh.

Even when she can admit that yes, she’s outgrown something, she forgets that and by the next week she’s trying to get herself into that outgrown item. Which is how she got stuck in a sweater the other week.

I know, I should be able to just Konmari things, pile all her clothes on the bed, and sort them quickly. But I must do that while she’s at school, or at least out of sight. Then, I must be able sneak those things out in the cover of darkness, where she won’t see. While making sure any other teen sibling who is told to fold the current pile of clean laundry on the table doesn’t fill Maura’s drawers with clothes that don’t fit because I didn’t beat them to the pile.

Oh, and let’s be honest – with all the other “fun” stuff I get to do on a daily basis in this indentured servitude vocation we call motherhood, it’s not the highest thing on my priority list. It’s getting there though. Because the clothing wars are beginning to rule our mornings, and I’m trying to make mornings less of a battle.

So if you don’t hear from me, I’m either trapped under a pile of hopefully clean laundry, or in a death match with Maura over a plaid skirt that no longer fits but she refuses to give up.

And maybe we’ll find the gym shoes we lost last week. That would be nice. Though she can fit into my shoes now, and not stretch them out like other teen girls in the house <cought>mim<cough>